


Hearts Prolific in Plain View

by Operamatic



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Domesticity, Drabble Collection, F/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Prompt Fic, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-05-17
Packaged: 2018-06-08 22:59:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6878302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Operamatic/pseuds/Operamatic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes just being there is enough.</p><p>A collection of small moments of intimacy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

♖: Having their hair washed by the other

* * *

 

“My mom always used to do this for me when I was little,” she muses from her perch above him on the lip of the tub.

Adrien supposes it ought to be embarrassing, asking his girlfriend to wash his hair for him while his arm’s still healing in its cast, but he can’t find it in himself to be bothered. Instead he feels a surge of warm affection for the way Marinette takes her time working the shampoo through his wet hair, mussing it and giggling at the way she can make it stand on end.

Her fingers work against his scalp, massaging at his temples, working their way towards the hard ridge behind his ears and back again. He lets out a low, contented sigh when she splays her hands out wide along his skull and pulls his head back to lay a soft peck on his forehead.

“Keep your eyes closed, I’m going to rinse,” she tells him and reaches for the bucket of water sitting on the floor.

“Is it going to be cold?” his nose crinkles as he grimaces, eyes screwed shut.

She chuckles at this, “You don’t get to complain, I’m doing you a favor!”

“Sorry,” he shrugs apologetically, “I’m not used to getting bathed by a pretty girl. Do your worst.” His whole body tenses, bracing for the sudden chill.

It doesn’t come, or at least not right away. He cracks open an eye, sees Marinette poised above him with the bucket gripped in one hand. He’d expected her face to be wry, a cunning smirk eager to douse him.

Instead she smiles down at him, radiant and smitten, like her heart is full to bursting and it just might bubble out of her and into the tub with him. She bends, tilting up his chin so that she can catch his mouth with hers, before breaking away with a soft hum.

The water sluices over his head.

It’s warm.


	2. Chapter 2

♔: Finding the other wearing their clothes

* * *

 

“I can explain,” she said, a blush igniting the skin behind her mask.

Adrien wasn’t entirely sure what could possibly account for the scene in front of him: Ladybug, standing in the middle of a walk-in closet ( _his_ closet. in _his_  bedroom), one leg still raised in the middle of tugging on a pair of designer jeans that would be snug on him but left her swimming in the denim.

She was wearing one of his sweaters, part of a fall look in steel grey with a ribbed turtleneck that hid all but the spotted gloves of her suit.

In his wildest dreams, those ones informed by a plethora of romantic comedies and late night soap opera binges, Adrien might have headily entertained the idea of waking up some day in the future, to find the girl in question maskless and draped in only one of his dress shirts. _Good morning Kitten_  she’d purr behind her cup of coffee, fingers peeking daintily from his cuffs.

This was…not like those dreams. Ladybug looked mortified, utterly stricken. Her hands flew up in a calming gesture that was anything but. He wondered idly in his shock if she was going to shove him out the door.

“THIS! I wasn’t?! I’m not-” she looked like she might hyperventilate, tugging frantically at the collar of the sweater before thinking better of stretching out the material, “This isn’t what it looks like!”

“Um…” he began, “It…kind of looks like you’re putting on my clothes as a disguise?” He sucked on his teeth a little, gesturing demurely back towards the windows of his room with a thumb, “Cuz of the uh…you know…Hawkmoth zombies outside?” As if on cue a few moans rose up through the open window,  _Send out the spoooots_.

“Thats…exactly what I was doing,” she sighed defeatedly, before hanging her head, “Sorry…it was a bad idea.”

Adrien wanted to take her by the shoulders, tell her not to doubt herself, to remember what he told her all those months ago at the Eiffel Tower, but kept himself still. Adrien Agreste wasn’t there that day. Adrien Agreste isn’t supposed to be that familiar with her.

“You’ll need a hat to cover up those ribbons,” he said, turning suddenly and rifling through a wardrobe set aside specifically for accessories. He withdrew a slouchy black knit hat and a pair of overlarge brand name sunglasses before handing them to her. She took them, almost reverently.

He noticed how her eyes widened when she recognized the labels, the way she commented on the quality, and filed that away in his mental list of _things I know about Ladybug_ alongside “Hates radishes” and “Is the love of my life”.

“I…” she tugged the hat on, tucking her pigtails up into it, “I promise I’ll get all this back to you somehow.” Her eyes met his resolutely, completely sincere.

“Keep them,” he smiled shyly, taking the sunglasses from her loose grip and sliding them over her mask. A thrill rippled through him, knowing that behind those dark lenses she was still looking at him with wide amazement, “They look better on you anyway.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

♧: One character playing with the other's hair

* * *

 

“If you were…stranded,” he begins, carding his fingers through her hair, trying to smooth away where her hair ties have warped it, “On a desert island, and you could only take three things, what would they be?”

“Any three things?” She asks, chewing thoughtfully on what is probably her eighth macaron, posture firm and unmoving under his minstrations. 

“That’s right, three things.”

Even after all this time she still sits ramrod straight when he touches her. Then again he still has a habit of talking too much and cracking bad jokes when she trains her eyes on him, so he’s hardly one to judge. They’re still finding those spaces within themselves that are rigid, those calcified remains of self-doubt and fear.

They’re also taking their time in discovering the best methods to lay those ragged edges smooth, to let themselves become soft to eachother. To learn to melt.

He begins separating her hair into sections while she mulls it over, carefully planning how they’ll come together in a french braid he learned from one of the stylists at work.

“Mmmm, the entire library of the Ecole de la Chambre Syndicale, a GPS enabled hailing radio, aaaaaaand you!” She ticks these off on her finger, chirping the last one as she bites her lip.

“You’re cheating!” He laughs, “That’s way more than three things! And I don’t count!” He tugs lightly on a lock of hair while she snickers.

“Why not?” she pouts unconvincingly, her shoulders finally starting to bend a little, spine arching ever so slightly towards him.

“Because I’d be the one coming to rescue you, of course,” he reaches around to drag his fingers through her bangs and her head follows, tilting back to catch a glimpse of his face.

“Adrien, with our luck, you’d be the one who got us stranded in the first place.” At last she falls against him, tension flowing away as she snuggles into his lap, lifting up a macaron for him to eat. His hands remain in her hair, not even bothered that he’ll need to rebraid it.

He takes the macaron whole into his mouth, lips and teeth lingering along her fingers, enjoying the shiver it sends through her.  He twirls a lock of her hair in his hand, before pulling it aside to lay a kiss on her shoulder. She arches into it, and soon enough she’s running her own fingers through his hair, nails scraping at his scalp, the two of them melting all the while.


	4. Chapter 4

♦: Slow dancing

* * *

 

“ _Miraculous Ladybug_!”  
  
The swarm that envelopes them is the same as always, a tinkling mass of ladybugs, sparkling like jewels, dancing on light. But tonight that light catches on the glinting decorations, reflecting in the massive mirrors that line the walls of the Grand Paris Hotel ballroom. The room sparkles, erupts in starshine, before settling back into its original splendor, almost as though there hadn’t been a battle here moments before.

When the cacophony fades, the two of them are left alone on a polished dancefloor. Chat takes in the cavernous space with a long whistle, eyeing the empty chairs and unoccupied tables.

“Too bad the Mayor’s inaugural ball had to get cut short,” he muses, watching as a lone bellman, still dazed from his stint as a supervillain, wanders down the hall in search of a stiff drink.

Ladybug pivots on the ball of her foot, stretching her arms out over her head while she turns, “It’s a good thing he invited us, I think we’ve set a new record for purifying an akuma!”

Chat chuckles at that, stepping to the side and following her turn. He catches her outstretched hand as it descends, lifting it up and over his head in a slow arc to settle on his shoulder.

“So do you have any plans tonight, now that the ball is cancelled?” He steps in just a fraction, catching her around the waist when her balance tilts backwards.  
  
“Considering I have five minutes until I detransform?” a beep resounds from her earrings, “I think the answer is no,” She quirks an eyebrow at him but doesn’t pull away, instead shifting onto her other foot.

“All the more reason to ask you to dance now,” He bites his tongue between his teeth, all cheeky grin and unrestrained glee.

“Ugh, you’re terrible,” she leans back. He expects her to lightly shove him away, to tilt his head off to the side and away from the cute quirk of her lips.

She doesn’t. Instead she tugs him along with her, the fingers of her free hand twining with his as she leads him in a slow circle.

“A-aren’t I supposed to be leading?” he stammers, cursing the way he trips a little as she drags him along in her wake. Six years of intensive tutoring and he never learned how to waltz? He could kick himself.

“You’re too tense, Kitty,” she ducks her head into the hollow of his neck, stepping into his arms and winding her own around his waist, “You don’t need to be a good dancer to impress me, you know.”

He freezes, arms still poised stiffly where she had been, unable to parse where she is _currently._

Three beeps echo in the hall, from her ears and his hand in tandem. He feels her sigh against him.

“I wish I could have worn a dress tonight. It would be nice if Ladybug could fight evil and look pretty at the same time.”

He swallows and lays his hands on her waist, mirroring her position. He sways to the right. The left. He tucks his chin against her head and they shuffle in slow drags across the floor.

“You are…you do…” he winces as the fourth beep rings out. He tries again.

“You always look pretty to me, my lady.”

He waits for the tensing of her arms, the break of their embrace and a rushed farewell.

Instead she takes a deep breath.

“I’ll keep my eyes closed if you do too.”

A fifth beep. A flash, rosy and brilliant, leaves streaks of color on the inside of his eyelids. A verdant burst follows it, and then…

They lean into eachother, still swaying. His heart beats a rhythm to a song he thinks she can hear, pressed as she is into the fabric of his shirt.

Her arms reach up around his neck as he sweeps her into a small turn, feet carefully toeing around eachother in blind syncrony.

Finally they stop when they hear voices from the far end of the hall.

Funnily enough he’s not panicking. Shouldn’t they be panicking?

Instead he wraps himself tighter around her, hands clutching at the soft fabric around her waist.

“On three, ok?” she whispers. He nods.

They count. They lean back. And eyes open, for the first time, completely.

The room glitters. It spins.


	5. Chapter 5

♗: One falling asleep with their head in the other's lap / ♣: Back scratches

* * *

 

In all the time she spent pining over him, it had never occurred to Marinette that Adrien would be so openly affectionate with her. She’d mistakenly imagined him unflappable, a veneer of professionalism painting every gesture.

It seems a silly impression now, comparing the boy in her lap to that washed out watercolor replica. The Adrien of her fantasies had been like an image caught through fogged glass, something immaterial to better protect her heart.

The real thing, it turns out, is far more difficult to deal with at times, easier to hurt and be hurt by in turn. But it’s also all the more rewarding, all that much sweeter, knowing that this was someone who understood her, who longed for her as much as she did him. Someone flesh and blood who, like right now for instance, would arch into the gentle grazing of her fingernails and sigh headily into the skin of her thigh.

Adrien’s eyes flutter open the minute she stops scratching his back, yawning languidly against her leg. His eyelashes tickle her at the bend in her knee.

“Sorry,” he murmurs, shifting to lie on his back and better see her face, “I fell asleep.” Almost unconsciously, he extends his hand, the knuckles of his finger trailing along her cheek, before settling warmly on the back of her neck. His other hand twines with hers, a needy grip placed over the steady pulse of his heart.

Marinette prefers this Adrien, warm and touch hungry and achingly human. From her place above him she can see the way his throat works as he swallows, nervous suddenly. His fingers tapping a tattoo on the back of her hand in the same meter as his heartbeat.

“Are you uncomfortable? Do you want me to move?” She can tell already what his preferred response is, so desperate he is to keep this contact.

“That’s ok,” she whispers with a smile, running her thumb along his jaw, “Stay as long as you like.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "Shrinking Violets" by Phox (aka: the most Adrienette song to ever exist ever)
> 
> These were all inspired by this fic meme I ran across on tumblr, Nonsexual Acts of Intimacy: http://bit.ly/1Yxbg3A
> 
> Follow me at http://miraculousandgrand.tumblr.com


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